The CHIME graduate programme in health informatics

In 1999 University College London inaugurated a programme of graduate part-time Health Informatics courses to support the UK National Health Service?s Information for Health strategy. The programme has attracted students from across the UK and abroad, with a diverse range of backgrounds and skills and has proved a challenging and rewarding experience for students and tutors alike. The modular programme aims to provide a thorough grounding in the theory and practice of Health Informatics and addresses important application areas. The guiding principle is that Health Informatics graduates need to understand computers and programming but that, since the majority are not going to become programmers, programming methods should not dominate the curriculum.In the taught phase of the programme students attend college for 3 days a month and complete an assignment each month, based on home study. Students may graduate with a certificate or diploma, or go on to tackle a dissertation leading to an MSc. Research projects have included a patient record system based on speech input, a mathematical model for illustrating to patients the risks associated with smoking, an analysis of Trust staff's preparedness for Information for Health and a patient information leaflet giving advice about drug related information on the Web. As we move towards our fifth intake of students, we are in the process of evaluating our programme and carrying out a follow up study of our graduates? subsequent career pathways

Seeking external funding: Experiences of selected full-time faculty at Rowan University

The purpose of this study was to analyze the obstacles and motivators that tenured and tenure-track faculty members at Rowan University\u27s, Glassboro, New Jersey campus face while seeking and securing external funding. The surveys were distributed to all 433 tenured and tenure-track faculty members on Rowan University, Glassboro\u27s campus. Of the subjects, there are 273 faculty members that are tenured, and 160 who are tenure-track. The results of the study conclude that Rowan University faculty members feel as though their heavy workload is a hindrance on their ability to seek and secure grant funding. Secondly, survey results indicate that Rowan University faculty members are motivated to seek external funding to build their professional career and finally, the results conclude that faculty members seek external funding to secure funds for financial support for travel, equipment, materials and supplies, and receiving financial support for student workers or other staff are extremely important motivators

An Evaluation of Material Response to Deformation in AA2219-T87 and AA2195-T87

The objective of this study is to evaluate material response to plastic deformation between aluminum alloys AA2219-T87 and AA2195-T87. Of particular interest are the deformation conditions that result in subsequent grain refinement or recrystallization. Although both alloys have a face centered cubic (FCC) microstructure, variations are expected in their plastic deformation behavior. During plastic deformation, dislocation motion results in faulted regions whose width can vary according to chemical composition of the alloy. These faulted regions, or stacking faults, influence whether dislocation entanglements form or annihilation occurs during the deformation process. In addition, differences in mechanical properties can affect the amount of adiabatic heating that occurs during deformation. Ultimately these differences can affect the uniformity of deformation and the stability of the microstructure

Investigating the Effects of Finite Resolution on Observed Transverse Jet Profiles

Both the emission properties and evolution of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) radio jets are dependent on the magnetic fields that thread them. Faraday Rotation gradients are a very important way of investigating these magnetic fields, and can provide information on the orientation and structure of the magnetic field in the immediate vicinity of the jet; for example, a toroidal or helical field component should give rise to a systematic gradient in the observed Faraday rotation across the jet, as well as characteristic intensity and polarization profiles. However, real observed radio images have finite resolution, usually expressed via convolution with a Gaussian beam whose size corresponds to the central lobe of the point source response function. This will tend to blur transverse structure in the jet profile, raising the question of how well resolved a jet must be in the transverse direction in order to reliably detect transverse structure associated with a helical jet magnetic field. We present results of simulated intensity, polarization and Faraday rotation images designed to directly and empirically investigate the effect of finite resolution on observed transverse jet structures

Stress tensor for a scalar field in a spatially varying background potential: Divergences, "renormalization," anomalies, and Casimir forces

Motivated by a desire to understand quantum fluctuation energy densities and stress within a spatially varying dielectric medium, we examine the vacuum expectation value for the stress tensor of a scalar field with arbitrary conformal parameter, in the background of a given potential that depends on only one spatial coordinate. We regulate the expressions by incorporating a temporal-spatial cutoff in the (imaginary) time and transverse-spatial directions. The divergences are captured by the zeroth- and second-order WKB approximations. Then the stress tensor is "renormalized" by omitting the terms that depend on the cutoff. The ambiguities that inevitably arise in this procedure are both duly noted and restricted by imposing certain physical conditions; one result is that the renormalized stress tensor exhibits the expected trace anomaly. The renormalized stress tensor exhibits no pressure anomaly, in that the principle of virtual work is satisfied for motions in a transverse direction. We then consider a potential that defines a wall, a one-dimensional potential that vanishes for $z<0$ and rises like $z^\alpha$, $\alpha>0$, for $z>0$. The full finite stress tensor is computed numerically for the two cases where explicit solutions to the differential equation are available, $\alpha=1$ and 2. The energy density exhibits an inverse linear divergence as the boundary is approached from the inside for a linear potential, and a logarithmic divergence for a quadratic potential. Finally, the interaction between two such walls is computed, and it is shown that the attractive Casimir pressure between the two walls also satisfies the principle of virtual work (i.e., the pressure equals the negative derivative of the energy with respect to the distance between the walls).Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure

Género, reclutamiento y protección: la guerra en Siria

Las constantes batallas en las que se ven envueltos los hombres que continúan dentro de Siria y los obstáculos a los que se enfrentan quienes deciden abandonar la lucha y huir del país dan fe de la necesidad de redefinir la concepción clásica de vulnerabilidad y de considerar que los civiles de sexo masculino y sus necesidades son parte de la solución más que del problema

Application Intrusion Detection: Security for Cloud Deployments

As servers move to the cloud, sources for security analysis become more limited. Security teams must make the most of the resources available to them. Our project attempts to fulfill this need by providing a template-based application to analyze and detect security events in logs that are available in cloud environments. We focus on authentication logs, but analysis modules can be added to flag anomalies in any log. The deliverables include log analysis, including successive repeated failures, location-based anomalies, and excessive failed login attempts across multiple accounts. To present our findings we output the results to a web interface for further analysis by a security team. Our project was limited by time, knowledge, available hardware and log sources. Under these constraints we developed a server-based solution that analyzes authentication logs and presents the data in an easily understood format. An authentication data log for a large organization can contain millions of events. To narrow down the large volume of information into a manageable number of interesting events, we analyzed the data-based on a set of our proposed criteria. The information that results from the analysis is easily read and used for further investigation into possible malicious behavior. The market impact of a comprehensive security engine capable of analyzing large amounts of seemingly unconnected data and reducing them into only the interesting entries would be significant. It would save security teams time, improve the incident detection efficiency, and help focus efforts and funds where they are needed most.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/capstone/1095/thumbnail.jp

The detrimental effects of emotional process dysregulation on decision-making in substance dependence

Substance dependence is complex and multifactorial, with many distinct pathways involved in both the development and subsequent maintenance of addictive behaviors. Various cognitive mechanisms have been implicated, including impulsivity, compulsivity, and impaired decision-making. These mechanisms are modulated by emotional processes, resulting in increased likelihood of initial drug use, sustained substance dependence, and increased relapse during periods of abstinence. Emotional traits, such as sensation-seeking, are risk factors for substance use, and chronic drug use can result in further emotional dysregulation via effects on reward, motivation, and stress systems. We will explore theories of hyper and hypo sensitivity of the brain reward systems that may underpin motivational abnormalities and anhedonia. Disturbances in these systems contribute to the biasing of emotional processing toward cues related to drug use at the expense of natural rewards, which serves to maintain addictive behavior, via enhanced drug craving. We will additionally focus on the sensitization of the brain stress systems that result in negative affect states that continue into protracted abstinence that is may lead to compulsive drug-taking. We will explore how these emotional dysregulations impact upon decision-making controlled by goal-directed and habitual action selections systems, and, in combination with a failure of prefrontal inhibitory control, mediate maladaptive decision-making observed in substance dependent individuals such that they continue drug use in spite of negative consequences. An understanding of the emotional impacts on cognition in substance dependent individuals may guide the development of more effective therapeutic interventions